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Goldsboro Books

978-1035080755

A British Childhood

A British Childhood

by Frank Cottrell-Boyce

Publisher Picador

Genre: Non-Fiction

Publication date:

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✍️ Signed by the Author 📘 Hardback 🇬🇧 UK First Edition, First Printing


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    All of our books that have a dust wrapper are covered in clear protective, removable film and are packed professionally in bubble wrap and a box for shipping so that they reach you in perfect condition.

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About the book

No home, no school, and especially no library should be without this story and this book' - Michael Morpurgo

'Original, surprising and compassionate without being earnest... Frank's book left me enraged, informed and moved' - Sathnam Sanghera

A British Childhood is at once a searing account of our failure to look after the nation’s most vulnerable citizens, and a call to arms to all of us to protect the innocence of childhood.

During his time as Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce visited schools that had been forced to make permanent homes in temporary buildings, where teachers doubled up as social workers, therapists and nutritionists. He talked to children abandoned within the prison system, seen to have forfeited their right to the second chance a good education might provide. He met families shuttled from one hotel room to another as they awaited the outcome of asylum decisions. And he talked to the extraordinary array of people working to change the fortunes of the young people around them.

These encounters prompted him to reflect on his own upbringing in Merseyside, the difference literature made to his early years, and how, during his lifetime, childhood in Britain has been transformed. He shows how the connections we make and the sense of community are so vital to our future adult selves, and how, in the twenty-first century, these connections have become increasingly frayed.

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About the Author

Frank Cottrell-Boyce

Frank Cottrell-Boyce is an English screenwriter, novelist and occasional actor, known for his children's fiction and for his collaborations with film director Danny Boyle. He has achieved fame as the writer for the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony and for sequels to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: the Magical Car, a children's classic, by Ian Fleming.


Cottrell-Boyce has won two major British awards for children's books, the 2004 Carnegie Medal for Millions, which originated as a film script, and the 2012 Guardian Prize for The Unforgotten Coat, which was commissioned by a charity.

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GPSR EU Safety Information

1. Manufacturer Contact Information

Goldsboro Books Ltd - 23-27 Cecil Court, London, WC2N4EZ, enquiries@goldsborobooks.com, 02074979230

2. EU Authorised Representative Information

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